See Also

Discussion

I'm wondering: Is there something like Py2Exe, but for Linux?

We have some Python code that we'd like clients to be able to run, but we don't want them to have to install Python.

I know that Python is a required install on Red Hat 9 and up, but I don't think it is a required install on Suse, or Mandrake, or yadda yadda yadda. So, I think this would be useful. If we had somethig like Py2Exe for Linux, then we can justify using Python here at work.

The question is: Does something like this exist right now?

No, we can't require our users to install something new. Everything has to just run, right out of the box, with zero installation.

Try googling for "freeze". It's in the Python distribution (in fact, there's a FAQ section called 1.4 Where is Freeze for Windows?, waddayamean, is there a Py2Exe for Linux ;)).

Heh! Well, I just never saw anything about Freeze online. I googled for "compile Python to executable" and stuff like that, for about 30 minutes, and never saw a single mention of Freeze. "If it's not on the net, it may well not exist," right?

It IS possible to create working executables with py2exe under Linux. I do create setups of fairly complex programs which use PyGTK and which depend on modules which are also compiled on Linux with MinGW ( ie. I do create windows setups on a 100% pure Linux system ). The one real hack I needed to do this is to call PETools for each created binary to fix the image size header field ( in PETools: "Optional Header"->"Size Of Image". Press "?" there and it will correct the size ), otherwise the application won't run. I use InnoSetup under wine to create an actual setup. -- Arne Caspari